John Witherspoon (né Weatherspoon; January 27, 1942 – October 29, 2019) was an American actor and comedian who performed in various television shows and films.

[1] He played Willie Jones in the Friday series,[1] and starred in films such as Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Boomerang (1992), The Five Heartbeats (1991), and Vampire in Brooklyn (1995).

[1][2] He wrote a film, From the Old School, in which he played an elderly working man who tries to prevent a neighborhood convenience store from being developed into a strip club.

[2] This then led to his 1982 appearance in WKRP In Cincinnati, in which Witherspoon played Detective Davies, on the fourth-season episode "Circumstantial Evidence".

[15] In 1981, he appeared in the NBC police drama Hill Street Blues, as a man who tries to buy a hotdog from undercover Detective Belker.

Other television show appearances include 227, which was an NBC comedy about women who lived in a majority black apartment complex, and What's Happening Now!

He was also on the Kids' WB animation series Waynehead, which was about a young boy growing up poor in Harlem, New York City.

During this time, Witherspoon was also featured as Spoon in all 18 episodes of the comedy series The Tracy Morgan Show.

In 2000, he was in the music video for hip-hop superstar Jay-Z's hit single "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)".

Witherspoon went back to his comedian roots and started a comedy tour that premiered on television on March 28, 2008, on Showtime.

[18] Witherspoon died of a heart attack at his home in Sherman Oaks, California, on October 29, 2019, at age 77.

[19][20] His funeral was held in Los Angeles on November 5, 2019, and he was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.